Circles
by Pyrasaur
Summary: The same thing day after day, the same thoughts to chase: Squall just needs something else to do, that's all. SquallxZell
1. Circles

A distinct disadvantage of the Garden moving -- at this moment, over dark ocean water spreading to the horizon's edges in every direction -- was that there was nothing to do while inside it. No mission objectives, nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait. Nothing to keep his attention but the faint, constant rumble of the engines and the pattern of cracks in his bedroom ceiling and the same thoughts to chase in circles while staring at the inside of his eyelids. Nothing that ever went anywhere.

So Squall had gone to the library, and picked a book with a cover as interesting as any. Battlefield chaos with a sneering sorceress at its center, magic and tactics and daring-do -- he had thought maybe it wouldn't be a _complete_ waste of time.

Forty-eight pages in, however, he had made up his mind that the so-called dashing hero was too stupid to live, and his gaze mutinied and slid away from the printed words like magnets opposing. So much for _that_ bright idea.

He put the book aside and leaned back to the wall, hair falling out of his eyes and the pillow bunching soft against the small of his back. Ceiling cracks were still just ceiling cracks, deeply shadowed with the long gold light of day's end but no different. What now? More of the same --back to his mind slipping into its deep-carved rut, people and events that didn't make sense and _wouldn't_ make sense no matter how long he wondered, old ego wounds that ached still and weren't going to stop, the leader role that twined around his neck hard enough to strangle and everything leading back to a sad little boy in the rain but that was where Shiva's shining presence began and everything was blurred with frost. The restless confusion, like something inside wanted to pace its cage, like he wanted to ask important questions but he didn't know what to ask, or to whom. The same, always the same and he would punch it if he could.

Squall sat up, slinging his feet to the floor and grabbing for boots to stuff them into. He had to do something. He had to get up and find something to do, anything but more useless mind-circles, maybe he could take the stupid book back to the library or--

Harsh pounding on the bedroom door, startled instinct making him half-reach for the gunblade's ghost presence on his hip. And then sharp annoyance welled up in him -- he should have known, by now, to half-expect that pounding that was too eager to be anyone else. Squall rubbed at the bridge of his nose, like that was instinct, too.  
"Come in," he muttered.  
And Zell came in, electric-bright energy and that toothy grin. More of the same, but there was nothing dull about Zell. At the very least, he moved.  
"Hey Squall, wanna kick some monster butt?" The door clicked closed and his weight flitted from foot to foot, perpetual motion that seemed perfectly natural in the corner of Squall's vision. He had often wondered how it was possible for a person to be like that -- movement incarnate. Sometimes it took so much just to move.

Kicking monster butt? It was a question he had heard from Zell plenty of times, and...going to the training center would be something to do. It would be that rhythm of battle to slip into, gunblade solid in his hands and magic's strength crackling through him, Zell darting by his side and both of them so focused, circling and striking and the dying shrieks of their monster prey, it was like sharing a mind and nothing could stop them. But...battles took energy. Something like energy leaped inside Squall but it wasn't enough this time, it wouldn't reach high enough for him to care. Training. More training. The memory-glory faded away into grey boredom -- it was just training, it was the same as always. He didn't know why that tasted so bitter.  
"...Not really."  
Zell's movement slowed to a stop. "Okay."

And that should have been it. That should have been the part where Zell said something about finding him if Squall changed his mind, and left and took his neverending energy with him, and then it would be back to bedsheets rumpled under him and the maddening thoughts to chase. But Zell stayed, and scratched at the back of his neck while silence drew out cold and awkward.

"...Still don't wanna talk?"  
Oh, not_ this _again. He wanted to sigh or maybe growl, but Squall just rubbed his nose, hard enough to make the smooth scar line burn with friction. What was it about him that begged people to pry him open? There was a reason, he knew there was, but it was distant and blurred with ice.  
"No."  
"Yeah..." Zell moved to the desk and perched on its edge, his movement edgy and his grin turning sheepish, something draped over his face like an idea forming. "S'what I thought, I just figured, y'know, I wouldn't wanna miss it if you _did_ have something to say. Even if it's not really important or anything. Hey, is that Courage of Odin? Is it any good?"  
It took Squall a moment to place the name, and then he glanced to the book on the floor, its colourful cover suddenly gaudy and the thought of opening it making him roll his eyes.  
"It's the corniest thing I've ever read."  
Zell brightened. "I bet! Selphie was going on about the love story, man, she's such a sucker for romance and frilly _girl_ stuff!"  
Romance? He had been smart to stop reading, then. The thought of two poor fools gazing into each others' eyes, murmuring sweet nothings and pledging eternal love, irritated him the way only stupidity could. It would be sad, truly sad, if Squall were bored enough to read _that_.  
"What kinda stuff do you normally read?" Zell asked, tapping the restless first bars of a tune against the desktop.  
It didn't matter, did it? "I...don't read much." Because reading was just sitting there listening, absorbing, thinking, anything but _doing_ and there was only so much of that he could take--  
Zell muttered agreement, and rubbed at his neck some more. "I kinda figured you'd read a lot, 'cause, I mean, you kinda seem like the type..."

And then he finally rose from the desk's edge, and shifted to the center of the floor to...not shadowbox. Zell just stood there, giving Squall a look like even he couldn't figure it out, practically humming with energy all pent up. It was wrong in a way Squall couldn't place and the silence started to itch.  
"Is that new?" Zell asked.  
"...Huh?"  
"That shirt, I've never seen it on you."  
Another slow realisation, and Squall looked to his own chest. It was just an old green T-shirt, something he had lying around... Oh, there was something to do, he could go do laundry. He could go sit in front of one of the battered old washing machines and watch the water swirl -- it had to be more interesting than ceiling cracks. He could do that if Zell went away soon, if he left and took his neverending energy and the gathering tension with him.  
"...It's just some old thing." This didn't matter either, did it?  
An idle shrug. "It's just a nice colour on you."  
It didn't seem like the kind of thing Zell would say; maybe it needed something, a sweeping gesture or, hell, just _something,_ some movement. He had never thought it would seem so out-of-place for Zell to finally just stand still, and stare at him.

And then Zell finally jerked to motion, sitting on the bed so it sank with his weight, his hands fidgeting and clenching to fists and the strangeness of it all ringing in Squall's mind. He was sitting so close, he wasn't bouncing and open like...like Zell. Shivering nerves crept through Squall -- there was something terribly familiar here, something heavy and looming but it _couldn't_ be, not _him_--  
"Um, so..." Zell's eager chattering had died to a murmur, one nearly shaking with the effort of being quiet and calm.  
Ohh, it always happened this way, didn't it? Someone cornering him with vulnerable emotional things like still-beating organs, making the tension cement-thicken in the air, putting him through a very special kind of torture and he didn't know what to do about it, as if he ever knew what to do _anyway_. He didn't _need_ people, he didn't _want_ those bonds in vulnerable places--

Wait, _Zell_ was...?

"What?" Squall replied, his voice level even though the shivering inside was starting to claw at his throat. He wouldn't help this. It would dwindle and grow quiet and die away, awkwardly like it always did because he wouldn't know what to do even if he agreed, and damnit, why did people always _want_ something from him? Why was it never _simple?_!  
"I dunno, I just kinda figured..."

There was something oddly like a smile in his eyes, and Squall remembered with glass-sharp clarity that this was Zell, and he wouldn't just let something quietly, awkwardly die. Zell didn't do that. He spoke his mind, he wore his moods like his very clothing, he never did anything halfway or half-hearted -- Zell had started something, and he wouldn't give up that easily. Far from the careful card houses of niceties and passive white lies that most people kept.

Cool determination nestled up to the quivering nerves. Fine. He could handle this, if it was actually going to be simple. But how _could_ it be simple?  
"What?" Squall repeated, and he wondered how many words would have to be wrenched out before this was through, how many of these silences like staring down an opponent in a training duel.  
"I..."

And that was all Zell managed to choke before the fidgeting swept over him, before he rubbed palms harshly on his thighs and his gaze darted, flickering back up again and a hand pressed to the back of Squall's neck like firm lightning, fast enough that all he remembered was the vivid blue of Zell's eyes and the hot, deafening surge of his own fear. One forced word and Zell's mouth pressed to his own, slick-hard movement of lips and tongue and it didn't feel _anything_ like he had imagined, and the hand at his neck tightening until it tugged the roots of his hair just enough to burn, and the screaming fear crumbling into sparkling bits of something else entirely. Feverish for a moment, like struggling against Slow magic, and then it tapered away, the mouth-touch was gone and the grip slid out of his hair with a whisper and the bed creaked as Zell shifted back. And it was like before, just sitting there on the bed and staring at each other.  
Zell grinned, faintly sheepish again, and huffed something almost like a laugh.  
"_That_," he said. There was a slight catch in the low edge of his voice, enough of a glitter in his eyes for Squall to know he was in _way_ over his head now.

And, god, his heart thundered, different than in peril and combat and somehow it was worse. Squall looked away to anything but those eyes, clenched his fists bloodless and numb, hoped he wasn't shaking as much as the nerves shivering through his body and just breathed. There was a point to this, something concrete that made sense -- there had to be.

"...What do you want?" He passed tonguetip over his lips. They felt different, like Zell's presence lingered and burned still. The mattress shifted with some squirming motion, the bed frame muttered.  
"Nothin'...big. If that's what you mean. Not, like, _dating_ or anything..."  
Ohh, just the word made terror wash cold through him. Don't think about it. It wasn't important, the..._social_ side of..._this._ With _Zell. _He just had make sense out of it, chase it until he understood and knew what to say. Since when did he _ever_ know what to say?  
Zell's voice came back into the thick quiet, still slow and thoughtful and plainly honest. "Just kinda...this. Simple stuff."

Simple. Squall liked to think that he could handle simple.

"...Nothing complicated."  
"Nope. Just whatever feels good, baby."  
His hair blurred everything brown, but he was sure Zell was smiling. Something simple with no bonds lurking in it, just two guys and no sticky sugar coating. Just whatever this was that made adrenaline race through him and made his thoughts stop circling and let him_ feel,_ let him _do_.  
"Nobody has to know...," Zell offered, and it sounded almost casual.

Squall had never bothered thinking about it, about what relationships were like and who he hoped for, about scenarios. But here it was -- reality, and it wasn't even a girl like he had half-supposed. It was Zell -- he knew Zell and fought beside him and trusted him. Strange, so strange, but... He couldn't find a reason to say no. And before he could think flaws into it, before his bit of courage faded, he pressed his different-burning lips into a tight line and nodded.

And it was another type of cement-thickening in the air when he looked back at Zell's intent grin, saw him flick tonguetip over his own lips and felt that firm hand slip around his neck again, and the world faded to just presence and touch and his ever-roaring heartbeat, the moist bizarreness of their mouths twining together. It was the bed moving underneath him as Zell wriggled closer, the little wet sounds their lips made, the strong hand stroking a fire-bright path down his chest and stomach and all the nerves and heat racing to follow it.  
It was a shadow of fighting, really -- bodies moving against each other, the press and tug of weight and there was no planning to it, just whatever worked. Squall sprawled back on a numbing elbow and one leg had no bed underneath to support it -- minor, niggling things next to the heaviness and warmth and muscle and _presence_ of another person on him, draped over his thigh and hip and chest, oddly pleasant. Zell's breath rasped over his throat in warm waves and he didn't really mind the uncomfortable way his back had to arch, he stopped paying attention to the shrieking nerves and they began to hush. Hair tickled at his nose and smelled indescribably _male_, his belts gave a muted jangle as firm touch brushed a hipbone on its way down -- it was still so strange, he was just learning this and he wondered how Zell knew, but the heat crested and everything else disappeared into haze and it didn't matter anyway, some small gasping sound came twitching out of him and he stopped thinking.

This was...a good way to stop thinking.


	2. Farther and back

Squall was great at thinking. It just kind of suited him, his brow would furrow and he'd get a hard look in his eyes like there were huge, important things rolling around in his head, and then when he finally said something, Zell always stopped to listen because there was gravity to it, like receiving _orders_. The others had to feel the same because nobody was really surprised when Squall became their commander, it just settled in like a missing puzzle piece and as far as Zell was concerned, Squall had always been a commander -- they just started finding and remembering good reasons for it.

But it couldn't be healthy, the way Squall thought so much. He'd stay quiet even after the thinking was done, like some kind of tense animal with its fur all bristled up, deadly serious and he hardly even smiled or anything. Thinking made Zell want to go out and get things done and take care of business and maybe knock a few heads together. If he just thought and brooded about everything, well, he'd go crazy. Anybody would go crazy after a while. It just wasn't natural.

Hell, everything _was_ going crazy, except that there was no jumping up and pacing or anything that could make it stop. They didn't know what to do anymore, the world was spinning out of control and they hardly knew who they were supposed to be fighting anymore, with big stretches of _nothing_ in between where the Garden was just slowly hovering along -- Zell wanted to see if he could swim faster, jump into the ocean water and try, just to _see_ -- and nobody knew what was wrong with Rinoa and she was there in the infirmary all still and cold like death and they couldn't do anything about it, and he really itched for a mission because he could only splatter so many grats around the training center and how could everyone else just _sit?_ Zell couldn't, he got so twitchy, he could never just sit still knowing that there was something to _do_.

And then he was outside the library, just screwing around and shadowboxing because it was better than nothing, when Squall came by. And Squall _had_ to be going crazy, he was tensed up and glowering like he was figuring out whose ass he had to kick to make Rinoa better, and he had probably been to the informary about twelve times that day already and if he kept it up he'd just wear himself down to a tired little scrap. And when Zell reached out and touched fingertips to his shoulder, Squall _jumped _and he looked so tired and...and defeated, and it tore Zell's heart into little pieces because if Squall couldn't handle this, who could?

Getting together was routine now, in the most random and incredible sense of the word, but Zell liked to think he had a better reason this time. He was glad Squall tightened his lips and nodded. More than he was usually glad because oh god _Squall _actually let him get close and touch his hard-sleek body and pull the tiniest little gasping wonderful sounds out of him -- this time, it wasn't just for fun. It was a distraction, a fantastic distraction so Squall would just stop doing that scowl of his for a while.

It must have worked, because Squall didn't look like he was thinking himself raw anymore. He wasn't even getting up and muttering about something he needed to go do, the way that was normally Zell's cue to leave even if it was his own room. Squall was just laying there, Griever's chain pooled in his collarbone and belts jumbled up around his open pants, one hand stuffed under his neck and he was just staring at the ceiling, his breathing slowed back to normal. It was thickly quiet, peaceful like after a really hard training session, stillness just kind of flowing through Zell and relaxing all of his tensed muscles and that was the _only_ time sitting still didn't drive him fifteen shades of insane, when it felt good not to move.

"Me and Seifer," Squall said slowly, "We used to be friends. Years ago."  
They had all been doing that lately -- finding bits of memories, bright little pieces like bottlecaps poking out of beach sand. Squall and Seifer, friends... It _did_ sound familiar. It was true but Zell didn't know how, couldn't find more than faint memory-shapes wrapped in crackling sparks and he chewed his lip. Trying to remember it directly never worked -- he had to sort of sneak up on his memories. Something like tables, desks, chairs so maybe it was in Garden, something familiar like going to class and the instructors always glared at him for fidgeting so it was nice to be a SeeD and not have to go to boring classes anymore-- he _really_ hadn't been able to sit still back then, he had honestly felt like he was going to _explode_. And Squall and Seifer had been friends, they sat together in the back of tactics class. The electric buzz faded away from the memory and its colours trickled back in, the Garden was so bustling-full of strangers back then but the two smirking faces were familiar. Seifer was a jerk but Squall had... Zell really didn't know what he had thought of Squall back then, and it was a gap weird enough to trip over.  
"Yeah...I remember that," Zell finally said, turning and propping himself on an elbow, "I had just come to Garden. I guess we woulda been twelve? Thirteen...?"  
Squall made a muttering agreement sound. "The other kids...just weren't the same. And I don't know if I remembered him from the orphanage but...it was just...like he understood back then. And then things started to change... With him, with everything...I guess with me, too." He paused, like the ceiling was supposed to reply. "I... What happened? How did everything get like this?"

There weren't cracks in the ceiling of Zell's room, but maybe Squall had gotten so used to staring at ceiling cracks that it didn't matter if they were there or not, he just stared and thought anyway. Looking at something didn't make a difference, did it? It didn't really matter, not as long as Squall was actually _talking_, in a low tone like his soul was showing and he didn't want anyone else to see. He really...worried a lot, didn't he? It was a weird contrast with how Squall was always so cool and always claiming that he didn't care and _wow_, he was letting Zell see this little vulnerable place, like it was something so special he had to guard it all the time.  
"I dunno...," Zell said because he honestly didn't, "It doesn't really matter how everything got the way it did, just that, y'know, we're here. Right _now _is the part we can do something about."  
The ceiling-staring deepened into that deep, dark brow furrow, and hell, Zell just had to open his mouth and stuff in a foot or three -- Squall was _thinking_ again.  
"There's nothing to be done," he muttered.  
"Like hell there isn't!"  
It was out of Zell's mouth before he even had to think, and fury rushed up hot after it. Squall looked at him, startled but like he was still trying to think around it, like he'd sink into that stony shell and tune out the world and think himself to death unless Zell did _something _but he just couldn't let that happen  
"We just have to find whatever it is! We're all behind you, Squall," and he jerked up and swept his arm back toward the door, toward the rest of the Garden and all their friends, "You know that, and you saw what all of us can do when we work together! And--"  
This was where it got hard, and Squall probably wouldn't like it but there were things inside Zell clamouring to be said and making him twitch and they had to come out.  
"--And we want you to be happy. _I_ want you to be happy, so we're gonna get Rinoa better, and you'll be better off with her."  
It was bad enough to think it -- saying it was like ripping out his own guts, he just felt so _hard_ and he wanted to scream or cry or punch something to free it, his muscles begged him to, but he just clenched his fists and shook with the boiling feelings and held Squall's wide grey eyes.

It wasn't supposed to mean anything, he remembered as Squall looked away at nothing, sat up and rubbed at his scar. They had sort of agreed that this thing they did wouldn't mean anything, that there wouldn't be any stupid fiddly complicated relationships where people got hurt, but Zell just cared, damnit, that wasn't complicated.  
Squall left his scar alone, and tension was building back into his shoulders and his forehead and the set of his jaw.  
"...Do you mean that?"  
Zell had never, ever in his whole life said anything he wasn't willing to back up, and he clenched his fists tighter so they went numb and he straightened up stiff and proud. "Yeah," he said, "I mean that."

And it was really quiet in there, just their breathing and the big thick silence and the passing seconds damn near hurt, sitting there with his nails digging into his palms and all he wanted was to jump up and run around and do some katas until the worries and tight frustration faded away. But there was something so fragile and unsure forming on Squall's face, like the special vulnerable place was coming a bit farther out and maybe moving would be be enough to wreck it, maybe moving would _bother_ Squall and he'd glower and go back to his cold damp miserable brooding place and Zell would never get another chance again. So he could wait. He could sit still and handle it.

"You...," Squall started, and he stopped and stared harder at nothing, "...I...don't know how I feel about Rinoa. It's like sometimes I want her gone, just _gone_, but then...I don't know what I'd _do_ if I never saw her again. A-and sometimes she'd smile at me like...everything was okay. She...I don't know," and his voice had gotten so small and lost, and he looked at Zell like he couldn't even remember his own name, "I don't _know_, but...you...don't mind that, do you?"

No, Zell didn't mind. He not-minded with every bit of his heart and soul and anything else he had.  
"It's okay," he said and his voice broke a bit, probably took a hit from all the welling-huge feelings struggling in his throat, and he swallowed and tried again, "You just gotta stop thinking and do what feels like the right thing."  
It sounded so corny and stupid when he actually said it out loud, but it was _true_ and it was all Zell knew how to do for anything, and it worked for him so if it could work for Squall too, if it could help actually _feel _as cool and collected as he seemed sometimes, it didn't matter if it was the stupidest thing anybody ever thought of.

Silence, the kind that was heavy and long like an old damp-smelling temple. And then Squall shifted onto his knees, bed frame creaking as he leaned closer. He was moving, hard and frosty-smooth -- Squall was confident when he moved. He didn't move unless he knew _exactly_ what he was doing, how to approach and where to strike, it didn't matter if he was using his silver-flashing gunblade or slow fingers over skin. And this time he...put a palm to Zell's chest and pressed. It took a moment to make sense but Zell obeyed, leaning until he was on his back in the soft-cool covers and Squall's hand stayed there, pressing on his breastbone like he was a pinned bug or something.  
"This isn't complicated," Squall murmured. He was doing a softer version of the thinking look, an intense stare that sent fire licking through Zell's body because god, it was aimed right at _him_. "This is supposed to be whatever feels good."  
Squall was thinking, but he was talking, too. And doing. That was a good combination.  
"Yeah," Zell said, and a firm hand ran down his side and settled into the dip above his hipbone, and that made it an even better combination.  
Slow thought moved across Squall's face, almost suspicious. "Just for a good time?" He kept his hand planted on Zell's chest, like an order Zell absolutely _had_ to follow even though laying still drove him twitching, screaming, hair-ripping _crazy_, it was Commander Squall's order and he just had to stay there and, well, there was no reason he couldn't get those pants off, right?  
"Yeah," he said, the maddening heat of it pulling his voice lower, and he slid leather away like maybe if he was really, really smooth about it, Squall wouldn't even notice, "Like, when you just have to _do_ something or you'll go crazy. You just go ahead and do it and then you feel better for letting it out." Kind of like that first time in Squall's room, when Zell was pretty damn sure he was going to get his teeth knocked out but it was a chance he was willing to take.  
Squall paused, and it was thick in the air like really meaningful words he just couldn't say. And he stared and Zell stared back, and Squall kicked his bunched-up pants off and stared again and then quietly asked, "...Why?"

_ Why?_ What the hell, it was _sex_ and-- no, wait, there was lots more to that question that Squall probably wasn't saying. And orders or no orders, the stillness was just too much and Zell forced Squall off, one of those moments where he resisted and it was some strangely exciting version of a fight, muscle against tensed, sweat-damp muscle, struggle and then he was successfully on top and it was just running his hands over Squall and nipping his neck to feel him shiver and taste the salt on his skin. Much better -- something to _do_, taking charge of it. But...why did he do it? Why did he _really_ do it?  
"I dunno," Zell replied, and straightened up to look at him and grin, "I just like you."

Squall didn't say anything, but it was okay because Zell hadn't really expected him to. He just stared up, hair spilled out and he was doing some weird little start of a shy smile that looked incredible on him, and then it was the same fight they always had, lips and hands and hard presence, fever-hot wrestling and and racing and Squall made that little gasping needy sound that made it perfect with all that heat and skin to touch. However long it went on, however many times it happened, it didn't have to _mean_ anything. It was just something to do -- something much, _much _better than nothing.


End file.
